Twilight
by Axie Flamesilocks
Summary: A pair of Organization members go on a routine mission to pick up their latest recruit, and encounter some internal and external difficulties in transit. Oneshot, Akuroku-ish.


Twilight. The air was chill with the coming night, and most of the people still out on the streets were wrapped up in overcoats and robes, looking a bit like colored marshmallows as they moved about aimlessly. Summer was ending quickly—particularly quickly here, as Twilight Town tended to be cold all year round.

A scuffle erupted in a back alley as a pair of boys sorted out their differences. A sound beside them distracted them, and they stared in mounting horror at the blackness spreading over the far wall. Forgetting their fight, they broke into a run in a flurry of arms and legs, shoes thudding and sliding against the street. They vanished into the crowd as two new occupants strode into the alley. "…boy from the clocktower tipped him off," one of them was saying gruffly, pulling his hood a little tighter about his face as the cold nipped at his skin. "But why we get the job, I have no idea."

His companion let out a quick, sarcastic laugh as they stepped out into the crowd, and people quickly took note of their presence. Frightened glances turned in their direction, wide-eyed children staring at them with the awe and respect one might lend to a lion or great beast. People parted in front of them, and the casual hubbub fell to hushed whispers as parents shooed their children into grocery stores and gift shops and out of harm's way.

The smaller of the two leered at a passing girl, making sure the tattoos on his cheeks were visible. Her eyes widened in terror, and she darted away into the group again. He could hear the story now: _That's the one who killed a guy! You heard about that, right? He looked at me! Looked right at me!_

"Demyx isn't so incompetent as to screw up something like this," the taller, gruff one continued. "It's hide and seek, and deliver to Xemnas. Piece of cake."

"True, but Xemnas seemed particularly interested in this one," his angular companion remarked, shrugging. "Maybe he doesn't want the guy to fall into Heartless hands. I'm sure you remember the last one that happened to."

"Brown hair, right?" The other one snorted. "He was a wuss. Even if he'd joined, he probably would've gotten himself killed before he ever became useful."

"He died without a name, Xigbar," the shorter one pointed out. "You can't even prove he existed at all. At least a name ties you down. A name makes you real."

Xigbar, though, was shaking his head. "A name means nothing," he replied. "It's just a word, Axel. If you take something's name away, does the thing stop existing?"

Axel muttered something about trying that out, but then he looked up. They were reaching their destination, and the discussion was over. Business took precedence. Both of them straightened, Axel flexing his fingers and Xigbar cracking his neck in preparation for a fight. It was unlikely that they'd have to shed blood here, Xigbar thought, but if DiZ got involved…

The Sharpshooter stood back, hands at the ready to call his weapons, as Axel approached the door. It was a small thing, looked like just a room wedged into the back of an alley—probably a storeroom at some earlier point in its life. Someone had scrawled the words "USUAL SPOT" on the wall nearby, with the P turned backwards. Xigbar took a moment to sneer at that. Kids, then. Why had Xemnas sent them to deal with kids?

Unexpectedly, a volley of shouts rang out and several children barreled towards them. Xigbar had his guns in hand the instant he heard them, but waited to see if Axel was in any danger before putting them to use. The Flurry had dodged the first two boys with clinical ease, sending them sprawling, and seized the girl by the ear, dragging her close to him and bracing the point of a chakram at her throat. "Easy, now," he said in a low voice to the boys as they rose. "No one wants to see this pretty little thing hurt, am I right?"

The brunette whimpered softly, which made Axel smirk, especially upon seeing the frightened expressions of her companions. Oh, the weakness of a heart. If the Organization had been in this position, it would have been an obvious choice—sacrificing a member for the cause had never been so easy. "Now," he continued in a businesslike tone, pressing the chakram's point a little harder into the girl's throat to make it obvious he wasn't playing games. "You're going to tell me who's in that room."

"We don't know," the black-haired boy volunteered quickly. "He—he just appeared out of nowhere, he wasn't making sense, he just kept screaming about Heartless—"

"And just what were you trying to accomplish by attacking us?" Axel pressed, his eyes glinting dangerously. "You have to have realized who you'd be dealing with. We don't take insurrection lightly."

Both boys paled, and the blond reached out imploringly. "Please—don't hurt her! She didn't even want to, we made her come with us—!"

"It's not her fault—!"

"Stop _whining_," Xigbar barked at them, and they fell silent, their eyes flickering from the gun pointed at them to the girl in Axel's grasp. "Here's how it's gonna run," the Sharpshooter snarled. "We're gonna go in and take care of our new friend. While we're doing that, you two are gonna take _your_ friend to the clinic."

Confusion registered on both faces, but horror swallowed it a moment later as the girl let out a sharp cry. Axel had opened her shoulder up with the blade, and now shoved her at them, letting her hit the ground with a muffled moan. "Be grateful she's alive," he growled, and the boys quickly seized up their fallen comrade and made for the clinic at a limping run.

Xigbar looked mildly surprised as he followed Axel into the Usual Spot. "I'm amazed you didn't stick her right there," he admitted. "Would've been an unbeatable lesson in discipline."

The redhead, as he proved to be once he pulled his hood back, was shaking his head. "The idea," he began testily, "is not to make enemies with them. You have to make them believe that they live because you grant it, not that they die because you want it. If I'd killed her, we might've had an uprising, and you know how pissy Xemnas gets when there's an uprising."

"Oh, good," Xigbar replied, smirking as he pulled back his hood as well. "I was a little afraid you were going soft."

Axel shot him a flat, unfriendly look. "Fine," he muttered, brushing past his companion. "I'll go kill her right now, if that's what you want."

"Nah, we don't have time," Xigbar told him dismissively, seizing the redhead by the elbow to stop him. He hesitated, his one golden eye squinting in the darkness. "Can't see anything," he lamented gruffly. "Don't wanna step on the guy…"

As expected, he heard the faint _bwoff_ of a flame igniting, and Axel strode ahead of him, keeping a roaring fire situated above his hand. "Down here," he said, bending, and Xigbar for the first time could hear the faint whimpers coming from the bundle on the floor in front of them. He knelt on the other side, and looked down to see a shivering blond boy, sweat popping out on his brow even as he trembled violently, his eyes squeezed shut. Axel cursed sharply. "Palpitations!"

Suddenly the two of them were a blur of activity, Xigbar locating the boy's wrist to feel for a pulse while Axel checked his breathing. They yanked the blanket down to the boy's knees, gloved hands pressing hard against his bare skin. "Can't find it!" Xigbar reported, pressing hard along the child's hip. He let out a stream of curses as the pulse—the pulse that shouldn't be there—quickened erratically. "Should we get Vexen?"

"Can't," Axel replied sharply. "I know you haven't got enough juice left for a portal, and I can't make it as far as the castle right now. We'll have to manage. Dammit! He's not breathing!" He glanced around the room briefly, and found what he was looking for: a lantern. A flick of his wrist lit it, and he let his own fire go out, bracing both hands on the boy's chest and pushing rhythmically as Xigbar continued to search. "Come on, don't die on me," he murmured urgently, putting his cheek by the boy's mouth to feel for a breath. "Come _on_!" he repeated, pressing again, a little harder this time with anxiety. When he still wouldn't breathe, Axel quickly pressed his lips against the boy's and forced precious air into his lungs. The blond coughed, wheezing, and blue eyes rolled down to meet Axel's.

For a moment time stopped as green met blue, and Axel marveled at the innocence in those eyes.

"Found it!" came Xigbar's voice, yanking him back into the present, back into reality, where the child was dying and needed immediate attention. Xigbar was struggling with the knot on the boy's shoulder, squeezing it tighter as it attempted to escape. In a quick spray of blood, it was out, and he clutched a struggling, miniature Heartless in his palm. The boy, who had let out a sharp gasp when his skin split open, whimpered softly as Axel put a hand over the wound, whispering a healing spell.

Xigbar squished the Heartless effortlessly, tossing its shadowy body to one side disgustedly even as it began to disperse. "We need to get him back to the castle," he pointed out to Axel. "No way can he stand a portal in his condition."

"Gummi, then?" Axel asked with a sigh, pulling the blanket up around the boy's shoulders. He hated the Gummi ship, despite the fact that Xemnas had ordered it to look especially badass (instead of clunky like those Heartless ships), and wasn't looking forward to the hours they'd have to spend tracking down the World that Never Was. Neither of them had much of a sense of direction, and the fact that they almost always used portals didn't help.

"Yeah," Xigbar grunted, helping the redhead finish wrapping the blanket securely around the new kid. Axel gathered the boy up in his arms, rising carefully to keep his balance, and stumbled backwards a little before leveling out.

"Let's go," he said, shifting so the boy's head rested against his shoulder, and he led the way out of the Usual Spot and into the street. Xigbar followed suit, pulling abreast of Axel as the path widened, and kept an eye out for attackers. Now that there was something to protect, the Sharpshooter was in control, trumping the Flurry with rank. But Axel didn't seem to mind—instead, his thoughts were on the cold little ear against his clavicle, and the soft breaths on his neck. The boy shifted incrementally, letting out a few garbled moans.

"…airi…"

Axel actually stopped walking when the blond curled in closer, beginning to shiver uncontrollably now that they were completely exposed to the cold. Almost absently, he let heat leak out of his own body and into the child's, allowing himself a satisfied smirk as the shivering ceased.

"You coming or what?" came Xigbar's annoyed growl.

"He's freezing his ass off out here," Axel complained to him even as he caught up. "I had to do _something_."

"Do it faster, then. The last thing we need is to get caught with our pants…"

But Axel didn't get to find out what condition their pants were in, as someone appeared before them just then. It was a darkly colorful someone—someone with the better part of his face bandaged in red and the rest of him hung with trappings of different sorts. Axel looked at him in blank incomprehension, but Xigbar stiffened with an almost feral snarl. "_You_."

"Relinquish the boy," the stranger said in a voice that made a prickle run up and down Axel's spine.

"Not a chance!" Xigbar barked, and in the next second his guns were out and firing. The stranger dodged in a blur of motion, moving faster than Axel would've thought possible—if Axel had been paying attention. The moment Xigbar fired the first shot was the moment the Flurry made a break for it. Anyone else might have lingered in doubt or out of hesitation to leave Xigbar's side, but Axel instinctively knew that since _he_ was the one with the goods, _he_ was the one getting off the world, Xigbar or no Xigbar.

There was a flash of motion as the stranger cut him off, and then the Sharpshooter was there, blasting away—and Axel pressed on towards the train station. He would've used a portal if he thought the boy's constitution could handle it for such a short distance, but he didn't want to take that chance, even if the stranger was unusually strong and was gaining on him with alarming speed. The thought occurred to him that, _If that boy leaves your arms, he's gone._ This bothered him immensely for some reason, and he clutched the child a little closer as he moved.

One of Xigbar's bullets ricocheted by his head, but he didn't dare glance back to see how close their assailant had gotten. He didn't have to, as in the next second something slammed him to one side, and he felt arms get between him and the boy.

"_RIKU_!"

Axel was choking. He was also fairly certain he was deaf in one ear, but the stranger's arms had slackened with surprise at the boy's scream. The Flurry sort of wished his diminutive cargo would release the death grip on his larynx, but he didn't have time to worry about that as he jerked the boy away and tried to get to his feet. The stranger clouted him a punishing blow, and stars joined the red haze in front of his eyes.

All at once, Xigbar smashed the stranger in the head with a sickening crack, and the boy relaxed his hold. "You alright?" the Sharpshooter demanded.

"Yeah, I…think," the redhead replied, getting to his feet a little shakily and shifting the boy in his arms. "This one nearly strangled me, but I'm okay."

"Why was he screaming?" Xigbar wanted to know as the two of them fell into step again.

"No idea. Sounded like he said 'Riku,' does that ring a bell?"

Xigbar shrugged. "Xemnas might know something about it. Xemnas usually does."

They got to the train station with no further incident, and from there to the Gummi ship, where Xigbar looked over the controls and muttered swearwords. "I don't even remember how to use this thing," he remarked to Axel, who was setting the boy down in one of the passenger seats.

"Uff—just—leggo—would you—c'_mon_!" the redhead complained, grunting and trying to extricate himself from the slender little arms that were so much stronger than they looked. The harder he tried, the closer they intertwined, until the blanket had fallen away and the boy's legs were wrapped tight around Axel's hips—which made the taller Nobody very red in the face. He put his hands on what areas of his hips were available and glared at the tuft of hair in front of his nose. "I'm _not_ Riku!" he informed it.

Xigbar let out a coarse laugh at that. "Fine, fine, I see you're busy. I'll try to figure out this bucket of bolts on my own," he grumbled, poring over the control panel.

"It's not like Gummi ships are complicated," Axel scoffed, seizing up the blanket again and sitting down. "Go, Stop, and Shoot. Oh c'mon, at least lemme get the blanket around you, you little nutball…"

That proved easier, as the boy seemed to relax once Axel wasn't pulling away from him. The redhead just sat and held him then, a little annoyed at first, but he gradually got more and more comfortable that way. After a while, he almost began to hope Xigbar would just keep flying forever and never get to the castle.

Which turned out to be a likely possibility. They must've stopped at least seven times, always so Xigbar could drag the map out from under the co-pilot's seat and turn it in different directions, swearing incessantly. He was just getting through with the mapmaker's mother, father, and gay child molester uncle when a shot to the hull sent them spinning. "Heartless!" Axel called out, seizing the edge of his seat as the boy's grip tightened reflexively. Xigbar let fly with the nastiest word he could think of off the top of his head and seized the controls in a death grip, yanking them hard to the left and away from danger. He then rocketed forward and stopped, whirling, to massacre the Heartless behind them.

It was once they were safely back on track that the boy finally started to wake up. Axel was still focused on the windshield, and didn't notice it when the little arms drew back and blond tufts brushed his shoulder as the boy's head swiveled. "Why're you holding me?" came a young but ironlike voice.

Axel took a moment to return his attention span to the blond, and finally realized that he was, in fact, awake. "You're the one who wouldn't let go of _me_," he said defensively.

"Huh? Why?"

"Why? Whadd'you mean, _why_? I should be asking _you_!" the redhead informed him.

The boy glared at him. "Whatever. The point is, I want down. Now."

"Fine, hypocrite," Axel muttered, drawing his arms away abruptly and holding them up to show he was backing off. Something heavy dropped in the part of his chest where his heart should have been as the boy slid off his lap and padded away from him.

"Where're my clothes?" the blond wanted to know.

"What clothes? You were in your birthday suit when we found you," Axel told him irritably, crossing his arms over the empty space where the boy had been.

"Spares in the cabinet there," Xigbar said, jabbing a thumb vaguely towards the back.

Axel watched as the blond bent over to rummage around in the multiple cabinets along the wall, and then suddenly realized what he was doing and looked away. "The hell's your name, anyway?" he demanded a little more harshly than he'd intended.

"Sora." The cabinet shut with a snap.

"S-O-R-A?"

Sora gave him a funny look. "Yeah. Why?"

"Cuz no it isn't. Not anymore, anyway." Axel reclined across the rest of the passenger seats, frowning at the ceiling. "Damn. That doesn't anagram well…"

"You're probably losing your touch," Xigbar commented from the front.

"You wanna try your hand, then? I keep coming up with stuff that sounds like 'soccer.'"

"That's because you never want to move the letters around." Xigbar was silent for a minute, considering.

"What're you doing exactly?" Sora asked suspiciously.

"We're adding an X to your name and mixing up the letters," Axel told him bluntly. "Like ours. I'm Axel, and he's Xigbar. Got it memorized?" he added out of habit.

Sora looked like he would much prefer it if he'd never heard those words in his life. "_Why_."

"Because we're only half people," Axel explained, turning over on his side and letting his arms hang off the edge while he gesticulated. "So, we're not people anymore, which makes us ex-people, so we throw the X in and make the name fit around it. Clever, huh?"

"How's Roxas sound?" Xigbar suggested.

"_Weird_."

"I like it," Sora-come-Roxas said defensively. The redhead had a nagging feeling that he picked the name _just_ because Axel disapproved of it.

And he wasn't going down without a fight, either. "It sounds like somebody throwing up. Pick something different."

Roxas shot him a withering look. "It's _my_ name, isn't it? And it's better than Axel. That sounds like someone choking on his own spit."

The Flurry glowered at him. "Fine. _Rawksus_," he added, taking great care to gag on the syllables.

"_Aksull_."

And Roxas stalked over to the other side of the cabin to sit in one of the opposite seats. Axel fumed at him for a bit before crossing defiantly to sit next to Xigbar and look important and mysterious. He couldn't quite figure out why he was giving the newcomer such a hard time—not that Roxas was having any difficulty getting him back—but somewhere in his subconscious he theorized that it had something to do with the boy's metamorphosis. He hadn't been Roxas earlier, and he hadn't been Sora, either—he'd been someone in between, someone helpless but strong who had somehow inspired Axel's fondness of him. But that had been taken away, quite literally in the blink of an eye, and it bothered the Flurry without him fully realizing it.

At any rate, the two of them were not off to the best start.

Author's Note: Meh. It started out well, but then Roxas got involved and it all got shot to shit. This is essentially what people on dA might call a scrap, since I'm probably going to use some of these same ideas in later works and take this down at a later date, but I just wanted to see what kind of a reaction it got. It won't get one, will it? Meh.


End file.
